- Publication: Athens Daily News
- Author: Joan Stroer, Staff Writer
- Original Publication Date: Monday, April 27, 1992
As the events in the last days of slain University of Georgia student Jennifer Stone come into focus, possible clues to the identity of her killer remain shrouded in undisclosed trace evidence.
Authorities will finish gathering evidence at her house today and turn the residence over to her family, while about 40 police officers continue to sift through hundreds of leads, Maj. Joseph Lumpkin said.
Ms. Stone’s funeral is today at 11 a.m. at The Church of St. Benedict in Duluth. A memorial service will be held Wednesday at U.Ga.
“We’re directing all our resources toward this crime,” Lumpkin said. “Everybody’s going to do something on it.”
“She was very popular at the university — she knew a lot of people,” police Chief David Camp said. “We’ve still got a lot of people to talk to. Every inch of that crime scene is going to be gone over.”
State forensic tests revealed Ms. Stone was raped and strangled between Wednesday night and Thursday in her downtown house, a two-room residence on the corner of Hull and Clayton streets, near the Greyhound bus station.
Three classmates found her partially clad body in her bedroom Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Police, who have not revealed further autopsy findings, are without a suspect.
But more than 70 interviews have revealed much about Ms. Stone’s personality and her last days.
“I was impressed by her seriousness,” said art teacher Bill Paul, whose advanced photography class critiqued Stone’s work Wednesday. “She was just a sweet, sensitive and considerate person. She was committed to some notion of excellence.”
Paul, who counsels Athens AIDS patients, said Ms. Stone’s slaying affects him differently than work with AIDS patients.
“This is just so sudden and absolute. It doesn’t seem to have any cause: It’s sorrowful.”
Dealing with such emotions are important, said clinical psychologist Elizabeth Barton, who works with the university’s Gilbert Health Center.
“It’s important to remember that people need to grieve,” she said. “To say it’s OK to feel sad, it’s OK to feel angry, it’s OK to feel I’m glad it wasn’t me.”
As always, steps can be taken toward personal safety, said University Police Chief Chuck Horton. And they go over them 15 to 20 times during orientation groups.
Campus vans, safety information and alcohol awareness programs are also readily available. Campus crime statistics are also available for the public.
“We hit them with stuff about alcohol, try to stay in numbers — just simple basic stuff we’ve been saying for years.”
Whether living on or off campus, students are ultimately responsible for their own safety. About 75 percent of students live off campus, and his office tries to stress that everyone is vulnerable.
“A lot of these kids are from small towns,” he said. “They think everybody is trustworthy.”
But sometimes no matter the precautions, the unwanted, unexpected occurs.
In 1983, Horton heard the confession of Warren Reid Hall to the December slaying of university student Donna Lynn Allen. He was part of a team investigating the on-campus slaying of Ms. Allen, and it’s an experience he won’t soon forget.
“If you have to go there and see somebody under those sheets — it’s not something I’d want anybody to go through,” Horton said.